Echoes Of The Past
by STRQ
Summary: Ruby Rose, a talented electronics engineer, gets a full ride scholarship to Beacon Academy, the most prestigious school for science electronics and engineering. however after stumbling into something unexplainable she and her roommate, the popular electronics empire heiress Weiss Schnee, try to uncover a 40 year old mystery. (Re-post of my story from AO3)
1. Chapter 1

_The night was quiet. It was a warm night, the sounds of bugs filling the air. It was soon to be summer. All across Vale citizens peacefully in their homes, or worked quietly at their guard posts. The streets were empty save for a few late night travelers passing through the main street._

 _The bugs went quiet._

 _In the days to come investigators would try to piece together what happened. Given the time there were only two eyewitnesses. The first was a baker headed in to start baking some fresh goods. He stated that he noticed that the crickets had stopped chirping and, looking up, noticed a reddish glow coming from the direction of Beacon Academy, before the explosion._

 _The other witness took weeks to track down, a woman from Atlas returning from a business trip. She claimed that she had been driving right past the school, and that before the explosion, she heard a deep rumbling laughter._

 _A few days later, the entire case was hushed up, and a few months later, the school was reopened._

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Ruby was excited. She had finally gotten the acceptance letter for Beacon Academy, the private academy for science, technology and engineering. Not only accepted though, but on a full ride scholarship. She had been worried that her dad wouldn't be able to keep up with the somewhat high tuition if she didn't get enough scholarship money and that shed have to get a job at the same time, but now he didn't have to worry.

She had packed all her things yesterday, her toolkits, her huge bin of scrap and parts, her acetylene and welding torch and her equally large bin of electronic components, circuit boards and programming laptops, most of which she had built herself. After about a 4 hour drive she was there. At the front gate of the grounds, the school motto, "In harmonia progressio", carved into the archway above. Progress in Harmony. Fitting for the largest school with Alumni like Ciel Soleil, James Ironwood, and the headmaster himself, Doctor Ozpin.

Entering through the gate, she could see a couple of hundred students gathered on the quad, greeting the new students. They were split up in three groups, based on the majors the students had applied for. The students were handing out flyers for clubs, helping carry items to the dorms, off to the left, or giving students tours of the main building, directly in front of her. To the right was the combined dining hall and administrative building. From what s remembered, behind the dorms were the playing fields, a soccer/football field, running track, and tennis, and basketball courts. Just because it was a school for brains didn't mean they did not encourage them to exercise their bodies too.

She walked over to the middle group, the technology group. Even though she was taking a split technology/engineering course she decided she'd go with the technology group, as their dorm would probably be best. Scrap and parts she could get from anywhere, but circuits were harder to get. Hopefully whoever she got as her roommate would let her….borrow things occasionally. After wading through the other new students, she found a new student guide, who got some others to help carry her things to her new dorm, second floor room 204. On the door was her name, and one other, Weiss Schnee.

Ruby had expected to meet some famous family names when she was here, but the child of probably the biggest tech company, Schnee Electronics, the daughter of the most decorated student to ever graduate from here, Jacques Schnee, to be her roommate. Ruby almost fainted right there. The dorm was bigger than she would have thought, with a main central area with two desks, two workbenches with swivel lights and magnifying glasses and a small sink with a mini fridge. To the left and right were doors, opened to reveal two bedroom areas. The left one was already occupied, the girl she assumed was Weiss was talking to someone that could only be her father; they had the same white-blonde hair.

Ruby really would have liked to talk to him, she had dreamed of working there someday, but by the time she had set her stuff down in the right room, he had already left. That was just like him from what she had seen at tech conferences, straight to the point, direct, then gone. Still, she walked over to introduce herself to her new roommate.

"H-hello? You're Weiss right? My name is Ruby, I'm your roommate." Weiss was wearing very expensive clothes, white/blue gradients with light gold trim. Gucci, probably custom made. It made Ruby feel a bit self conscious about her much more casual, and cheap black Levi's, red Converse and basc off the shoulder black and red striped shirt. Ruby could practically feel the judgement. Still Weiss did shake her hand.

"I suppose you know all about my family, so listen up. I'm not a walking purse, dont touch my stuff, and dont bother my when I'm working, got it? This is my half of the room you have no real reason to be over here."

"Oh...yeah ok, got it. So I guess you want the left desk and workstation then?"

"Yes I do. You catch on quickly, great job." the response was positively dripping with sarcasm.

Ruby went back to her room, unpacking her bedding and after throwing it haphazardly over the bed, and threw her clothing up into the closet. Afterward she put up her band posters, ACDC, Metallica, Queen, Led Zeppelin, and the like, plus plastering the other wall with her schematics, designs and other plans, though none of her super secret plans, which she kept locked in a box in her new desk. The desk had three drawers, so she filled one with her tools, and the other with some blueprint paper and pencils. Under the workbench she shoved her bins of parts and electronics. Fully set up, she looked over at Weiss's side. Everything was incredibly neat, every single tool placed on a pegboard in its own outline, parts separated into baggies based on type, size and even coloring. Ruby shrugged, everyone had their own ways of organizing. She personally could plunge her hand into her parts bin and pull out exactly what she needed by feel only. Finally she pulled out her somewhat crumpled schedule. Her first class was a fun one, Electronic Design 8am, she'd get to make stuff all semester. After that she had History of Electronics 10:45, bleh, then an hour break before Engineering Questions: How things work. And then she had the rest of the day free. That was her monday wednesday and friday schedule. Tuesdays and thursdays she had two classes, a required two hour mathematics course at 7am and a three hour lecture hall class at 3pm booooring, but also required.

From behind her she heard weiss suddenly pipe up. "Write your schedule down on the whiteboard so I can know when you'll be here or not." looking over Ruby saw Weiss had indeed put a whiteboard up on the door, a little dry erase marker clipped to the side. Looking at Weiss's schedule, she noticed the had the same Electronic Design, and the same Lecture Hall, and that she had the Mathematics at the same time but a different teacher, based on the room number she had put. She quickly wrote down her schedule. Before going back to her room to call her dad to tell him she had made it ok and was all set up. After hanging up she left, and noticed Weiss had re-written her schedule to be neater. Ruby smirked and went to go get a meal at the Dining Hall.


	2. Chapter 2

-Chapter 2: The First Day-

Ruby was excited, to say the least. Today, Monday, was her very first day of class. Last night, after she had gotten back from eating Weiss had been reading through their History of Electronics textbook, boring. Instead of that she had sat at her workbench idly working on something she had been trying to get right for years, a small mechanical thing that would function as a sort of personal assistant. The basic electronics were complete but the mechanics for it to walk were a bit erratic, not to mention she couldn't figure out the coding on the AI. after working on that for a few hours she jumped into her bed setting her alarm for 6am, she always liked extra time to wake up. She felt like tomorrow would be a great start. How wrong she was.

First her alarm failed and went off an hour late, then she was hurrying around with Weiss scolding her about being on time, she didn't have enough time for breakfast, then she was nearly late to her first class and had to sit way in the back. At least the class seemed to be fun though they spent the first entire class doing "ice breaker" activities. The teacher was nice enough, a large old man namd Professor Port who insisted they call him Peter. Next though she had History of Electronics, the subject she had thought would be incredibly boring, but their teacher, a weird foreign man named Dr. Oobleck made the whole thing sound really fun, especially with his funny voice and quirky fast mannerisms. She had a feeling Weiss wouldn't have liked hm uch. She hadn't been very forthcoming in Electronic Design. Finally though the bell rang at 1. She could have gone to get some lunch at the cafeteria, her full ride giving her the largest meal plan, but she had been dying to explore the school some more. She walked around, going to the school Activity fields, where she finally saw it. The thing that Beacon was known globally for, its pride and joy (and widely considered one of the wonders of the modern era) the Situational Training Arena.

Though students could choose to run on the actua track, or play on the actual fields, they could also choose to use the Training Arena. However soccer tennis and running were barely used. No, most people used it for its "Combat Mode". Though many had asked, no one but the Creators, Jacques Schnee James Ironwood, then students, and their teacher sponsor, Dr Ozpin knew exactly how it worked, and they weren't telling. The place where the STA now stod had originally been the school's Wrestling and Boxing area. But where those required punching bags, a sometimes expensive thing to replace, or other students to fight, the STA createdillusory holograms that, in conjunction with sensors placed on the wrists ankles and around the abdomen, allowed a student to interact with the holograms, and actually "feel" the hits.

Unfortunately for Ruby, there was already a line of 6 people waiting to enter and the machinery had to be calibrated to each person's size and strength, which took about 20 minutes. She just didn't have the time to check it out fully. In fact, she had been so entranced watching people through the door she only had 7 minutes to get to class. As she ran to her class she gave one last look back at the building and noticed something she hadn't before. Behind the STA, was a fence. Nothing too special, save for the Danger signs and the Razor wire at the top. And although it could have been just her imagination, she could have sworn the sign said "Biohazard"

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Over the next few days, Ruby began to notice other strange things. Like how the library, though full of tons of information, had a distinct lack of school history. Or how there were no classrooms that had windows facing the STA. or at least, none she could access. After first noticing that sign, she had expected to go back and check it right away, but had gotten completely caught up in the wonders of her dream school, plus a visit from her parents and sister. Her dad, Tai, was just a simple school teacher at their local school, Signal High, where he taught History and Philosophy. It was there that he had met her mom, Summer. She had been just a teacher's aide at the time, but now taught full time Science. Her sister, Yang, was two years older than her, and was enlisted, a CSM in the army. Her mom and dad always said how proud they were to have such exceptional children. She spent the rest of that day with her family. A few other people's families had visited as well, and they all gathered in the Quad, subconsciously grouping together there. Ruby tod them all about her time so far, her teachers, how boring the Mathematics class was, Led by their super stern teacher, Ms. Goodwitch (what was with the teachers and their strange names?) and how she didn't even need to take it because she knew it all already, and how she had fallen asleep in lecture hall, though the fact that it was an open lecture, meaning that various teachers would be giving lectures throughout the year, did make it a bit more interesting.

Before they left, they insisted on seeing her dorm ("its just a room, come on you have all seen rooms before") and Ruby had hoped that Weiss wouldn't be there, but she was, though when she saw her whole family there, she politely said she needed to do some studying, and shut herself in her side of the room, much better than how she normally acted. After assuring them she was getting enough food, and that she was just as organized as she needed to be, and yes she had emergency money, she finally got them out of the dorms, and then unfortunately, they had to go. Both Tai and Summer had teacher things to do, and Yang had only taken a few days leave, and she had other people to meet still, including her friend Blake, who went to the famous arts college in Mistral. She hugged them all tightly, before watching them drive off, Mom and Dad back towards Patch, Yang to the airport. She missed them already.

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The weekend. Finally no classes. And sleeping in. she still hadn't gotten used to her new schedule, so it felt nice to be able to sleep in as long as she wanted. At least she could have, but at 8am Weiss was knocking n her door, interrupting her nice dreams of endless giant cookies spinning through space. "Get up. I know you have homework to do. Professor Port wants our initial design ideas and rough blueprints done by next class, and I refuse to have a failing roommate make me look bad" Ruby sighed, looking up at the poster just above her.

"Think she'll ever stop being so uptight?" she asked of it. But sadly Robert Plant held no answers for her. At least not in poster form. She wasn't sure why but suddenly she remembered what she had wanted to do. The fenced off area behind the STA. she had forgotten, but it all came back. And some other things she had learned since then, such as the classrooms were all smaller than they originally had been, each having been essentially divided into two. And all of this she found to be incredibly suspicious. Jumping up she threw on some clothes, ripped jeans and a plain black tee-shirt, pulled on her Converse, and ran out of her room.

'Where are you going?" Weiss asked as she grabbed her bag

"Library." she quickly shot out, running out of the dorm. Once outside she ran off towards the practice fields, walking casually yet quickly among the various students running, shouting and laughing. A few classmates she had invited her to a game of frisbee, but she declined, saying she wanted to check out the STA.

"Oh, that place is really fun" said Penny, already distinguishing herself as one of the best mathematicians in their class. "I'll go with you, i found some fun things you could do with the-"

"No, really that's fine...I kind of want my first experience with this kind of tech to be solo you know? Makes it more special" with that, she jogged off towards the building. When she got there, she looked back. Through the trees around the edge's of the fields, she could see that no one was looking at her, and so she went around to the side of the building. Approaching the fence, she finally saw the sign she had noticed all that time ago.

"Warning, Biohazard: Holographic Situational Combat Arena and Sports Field Maintenance building beyond. Authorized personnel Only" but looking through the fence, all she saw was a field, a few trees, and hills. Maybe the building was in between the hills? Maybe, but looking at the fence and how the hills were shaped she could never be sure, she wouldn't be able to see around the hill at all. She suddenly remembered a door she had seen in one of the buildings. It was on the top floor of the academic building. Nd it had windows that looked out onto the field. Though you couldn't really see them, as several large trees blocked view of that side of the building. She also recalled that the door had been sealed with a very cheap and old electronic lock, and that Weiss had a wiring kit on her desk. A plan started forming in her mind.


	3. Chapter 3

Ruby sighed. She wanted to check her phone again, but also didn't want to risk someone seeing the glow from the screen. Even with the brightness all the way down, it would still be like a signal beacon in the dark. Heh, a beacon at Beacon. Still, the waiting was killing her. She had been creeping to the door that she hoped would give her answers, but on the way there she had noticed that a door was open, a dim light barely passing the door frame visible within, one of the staff she didn't know, up late doing teacher stuff she assumed. The door she needed to get to was right beyond that, but she remembered the floor was really squeaky there, and she couldn't have anyone around to hear it. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the light clicked off.

Slowly walking out of the room was, not a teacher like she had expected, but instead, the Headmaster himself, Professor Ozpin, walked out, unmistakable with his ever-present cane. As he passed by her, Ruby noticed something about the cane she hadn't before. The only time she had seen him was during orientation, and only distantly, as he spoke on stage, under bright lights. But now, close as she was, she noticed that the top of the cane glowed faintly, as did an intricate pattern of lines along the handle part. Just another thing to add to her list of questions. As he opened the door to the stairwell, a brief rectangle of weak light filtering down the hall before the door closed with a little click. She counted out three minutes, just to be sure he was gone, before once again moving toward her goal.

One short creaky trip later, she was in front of the door. Slowly, she set down her bag, usually filled with tons of tools scraps and papers, but now light, nearly empty. in the side pocket she had put one of her few emergency glow sticks, cracking it and shaking, letting a dim green glow spread out, before brushing her hair back and tucking it above her ear, letting the glow illuminate the area around her, before pulling out Weiss's wiring kit and a set of precision tools. Slowly, she unscrewed the screws around the faceplate, pulling it off. Next, she would have to pull off some components to get at the internal wiring, but when she pulled on the first one, the entire thing came off the door.

"What the…." she looked at the entire lock in her lap, seeing that there was no wiring at all, just a battery powered red LED. gently placing it back into the door, she quickly screwed the face plate back on, then tried the handle, which opened easily. She was extremely confused but not nearly as confused as what was in the room. If it could even be called a room that is. Most of the ceiling was destroyed, rubble littered the room, evidence of previous water damage was evident, but it wasn't as bad as it should have been, the result of the top being covered with a tarp, placed over the ruined part, the material taut. "What is going on in this school….?"

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Weiss sighed, sitting up in her bed. Everything around her was neat, right where it belonged. Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she landed right in her slippers, and grabbed her towel and a small basket of showering supplies, walked off to the common showers, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She hated this part of the day, she really wasn't used to not having her own large private multi-faucet shower that automatically knew the temperature she preferred, but there was something freeing about it. Slipping out of her slippers, and nightgown, and into shower shoes, she turned the shower on (the first night she had actually needed Ruby to explain to her how it worked, quite embarrassing) adjusting the knob right to the little mark she had made, giving it a moment to properly heat up while she neatly folded her nightgown, before stepping into the warm cascade.

One ok shower later, Weiss was heading back to the dorm to change into her clothes for the day, a nice outfit she had picked out yesterday. She dressed quickly, noting that her roommate had still yet to wake up. She rolled her eyes, the girl was an absolute nightmare, in her opinion. She had no sense of privacy or organization, constantly listening to loud raucous music. But, Weiss couldn't deny her brilliance. She had a seeming intuition for mechanical work, and she had noticed that her laptops had no brand, meaning they were self-made. She knew what was involved in making a laptop, and based on their wear and tear, she had made them as an astoundingly young age. And even with her lack of organization skills, she still never seemed to have trouble finding anything.

As she was going to wake Ruby, she happened to glance at her workshop and saw that her wiring kit was out of place. Glaring at the closed door, she went over and fixed it, opening it to make sure nothing was missing. Any missing things Ruby would replace, but everything inside was still there. Had she messed with it just to annoy her? She growled softly, carefully setting it back down, deciding to not Wake Ruby up until after she had made and enjoyed her coffee. That way she would have enough time to get ready. But only if she worked efficiently. As she was making the coffee though, she felt...bad. She remembered how panicked she had looked on the first day of class rushing around. She may have been a mess, but she could tell that she valued being on time almost as much as she did. Sighing, she walked over to the door, but before she could knock, it opened, startling her.

Ruby was already fully dressed in her ripped and baggy clothes, she seemed to be completely preoccupied with something on her phone, and walked right into Weiss. Weiss for her part was surprised, Ruby had never gotten up without either her or some alarm, but based on how she looked, she didn't think Ruby had even been to sleep. After a mumbled apology, Ruby grabbed her bag, threw her stuff into it and left before Weiss could even ask about her stuff. It was strange for Ruby to not even say "hi" to her. She did it practically every time they crossed paths. She hadn't realized it but she had kind of started to enjoy the attention. It wasn't like the typical attention she got because of her father or her status. It was just Ruby being happy to see her. Weiss wondered if maybe she had been too mean. She decided she would keep a closer eye on Ruby, and to maybe loosen up a bit.

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Now Weiss was really concerned. Over the past week, Ruby had been increasingly shut in, and she looked like she wasn't getting much sleep, and she kept sneaking away somewhere. Despite Weiss's best efforts, she hadn't been able to follow her, she was much better at being sneaky than she was. She would look away for just a few moments and poof, Ruby was gone. She had been slacking off in class, not that the teachers minded, she was still doing quite well, but Weiss knew she couldn't keep it up for long. Weiss knew from experience what pushing yourself too hard could do. She had still been trying to find out where Ruby was sneaking off to, but she hadn't had much luck. Until tonight that is. She had with more ease that she had thought slipped out of their dorm without Ruby noticing. She hid around the corner at the end of the hall, and waited, not a few minutes later she saw Ruby slip out of the dorm, clearly looking at her closed door as if trying not to disturb her, before slowly closing it and slipping off down the hall the other way.

Weiss waited a few seconds before going to follow her. She watched as Ruby walked just a bit too quickly off to the academic building before slipping inside, Weiss waited as long as she thought reasonable, but she couldn't wait too long, the building was large and she could easily lose Ruby. slipping through the door, she heard the closest stairwell close. She slipped up next to it, waiting with her ear pressed against the door. One thing she had noticed was that the lower floors were much more renovated, and the further up you went the older it became. As such, if she heard Ruby open the door she's know about which floor she was going to, and indeed she heard the loud creaking of old hinges whining in protest before eventually a loud ker-thunk indicating she had just entered the top floor. Slipping through the door, Weiss quickly ran up the steps, slowly peeking through the window set in it.

Ruby had slipped to the end of the hall, before looking lazily around, not noticing Weiss, and slipped through a door at the end of the hall. There was no way Weiss could get in without Ruby hearing her, which meant she would have to wait at least one more day to find out what exactly Ruby had been doing, and what was in that room. If she recalled correctly, that door was supposed to be electronically locked, so if Ruby had hacked it, or worse, stolen a key card, she would have some explaining to do. Now lost in thought, she quickly left the building, not noticing the dark hooded figure leaning against a tree on the quad, a figure who seemed to flicker before simply vanishing into the darkness.

 **I feel like this chapter isn't as good, but for personal reason writing this story is kind of hard, It keeps reminding me of my own college experience, which just stresses me out, but with some good classic rock (Something this Ruby and I both have a love for) I managed to power through and finish this chapter. hope you enjoy and be sure to review with any questions comments or constructive criticism. none of that bullshit "this sucks go kill urself" shit now ya hear?**


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